The role of community-based, problem-centered information intermediaries in local problem solving

Abstract

Lobbying for school reform, cleaning up graffiti, and enacting noise ordinances are daily problem-based activities performed by organized citizen groups. Routinely in the course of problem-solving, these organizations-both formal and informal-seek out, interpret, distill, and re-frame information. But understanding information access and use in a community where a range of community-based, organized groups play the role of information seeker as well as information provider and facilitator presents a challenge to the researcher. In these settings, information researchers must address the context of the community and the multiple roles that the community-based groups play in the local information environment. In this paper we argue that organized local groups are critical to the information landscape of communities precisely because they play important intermediation roles. Based on our field work conducted in Hartford, Connecticut, we identified several broad strategies employed by problem-centered information intermediaries. They make information relevant for their constituents by distilling, tailoring, and vetting. They use formal and informal mechanisms to collect and share information. Finally, they prepare information for specific uses and disseminate it broadly to the community. Though these civic intermediaries share characteristics with the broad information intermediary role of information professionals, they are different in their focus, purpose and attitudinal perspective toward information.